The best Thanksgiving quotes for a table are short, warm and easy to say out loud. Pick one line for each place card, one toast for the host to read before the pie, and one saying for the chalkboard by the door. If you only have a minute, take these five and go:
Thanksgiving Quotes and Sayings for the Table
Styling idea: a handwritten line on each place card. Not the linked products.
- “Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.” (William Shakespeare)
- “One can say everything best over a meal.” (George Eliot)
- “I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.” (Henry David Thoreau)
- “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
- “Saved you the seat nearest the gravy.” (Etheric Echoes)
Whether you want Thanksgiving quotes about gratitude for a card, funny Thanksgiving quotes for the kids’ table, or a few words to give thanks with before dinner, everything below is sorted by what you are making, with the author and the book beside each classic line, so you can copy one and move on. Every old quote here was checked against the text of the book or a second source. The lines marked Etheric Echoes are ours, written for a real table, and you are welcome to use them.
Short Thanksgiving quotes for place cards
A thankful heart does not need many words, and a place card gives you about one line, so keep it under ten words if you can. A tent card that measures 2 by 3.5 inches holds a name on the front and a short line inside or underneath in pen. These come from writers whose work is old enough to be free to share.
- “Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.” William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors (Act 3, scene 1)
- “One can say everything best over a meal.” George Eliot, Adam Bede (1859)
- “To receive honestly is the best thanks for a good thing.” George MacDonald, Mary Marston (1881)
- “The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.” William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (about 1790)
- “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)
- “I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship,” Essays: First Series (1841)
- “The best smell is bread, the best savour salt, the best love that of children.” George Herbert, Outlandish Proverbs (1640)
Short lines of our own, for a name card that needs something warmer than a name:
- Saved you the seat nearest the gravy. (Etheric Echoes)
- Glad you are at this table. (Etheric Echoes)
- Your chair has been waiting since Tuesday. (Etheric Echoes)
- Thankful for you, specifically. (Etheric Echoes)
- Sit anywhere. The pie is coming to you. (Etheric Echoes)
Thanksgiving toasts to read aloud
A toast is the easiest way to express our gratitude to everyone at the Thanksgiving dinner at once. It takes about twenty seconds and ends before the food gets cold. Read one of these standing up, then sit down and pass the potatoes. The first three are classic lines that work well spoken.
- “A grateful mind by owing owes not, but still pays, at once indebted and discharged.” John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), Book IV
- “Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” Charles Dickens, “A Christmas Dinner,” Sketches by Boz (1836). Dickens set off the middle phrase with dashes; commas are used here.
- “Human felicity is produc’d not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.” Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography
Franklin’s line is the one for a small gathering. Felicity just means happiness, and his point is that it comes from small things that happen every day, like a full table on an ordinary Thursday, not from one grand event.
Toasts of our own, short enough to remember:
- To the cook, who started before sunrise, and to everyone who offered to help and got sent out of the kitchen. (Etheric Echoes)
- To the folding chairs, and the people willing to sit on them. (Etheric Echoes)
- To the ones at this table, and the ones we are thinking of today. (Etheric Echoes)
- To full plates, a warm room and one more story before the pie. (Etheric Echoes)
- To the year behind us. It had its moments. Pass the potatoes. (Etheric Echoes)
Thanksgiving chalkboard and letter board sayings
A chalkboard or felt letter board by the front door tells people the day has started. Keep it to four or five words, because nobody reads a paragraph while holding a casserole. Count your letters against the set in the box before you start, since a long word can run out of room on a small board. These are all ours:
| Saying | Where it works |
|---|---|
| GATHER HERE | Entry or dining room |
| THANKFUL FOR THIS TABLE | Over the sideboard |
| LEAVE YOUR WORRIES WITH YOUR COAT | By the door |
| TODAY’S SPECIAL: EVERYONE | Kitchen |
| SECONDS ARE ENCOURAGED | Buffet or counter |
| GRATEFUL, FULL AND SITTING DOWN | Living room shelf |
| PIE AT 4 | Kitchen or hall |
Etheric Echoes wrote every line in this table. A short thank-you works on a board too, and the plainest one is the best: “Thank you for coming.”
What to write in a Thanksgiving card
Express your gratitude in a card and it lands harder than at the table, because people keep them. Most people stall on a card because the first line feels like it has to be big. It does not. Say what you are glad about, in your own words, and sign it. If you want a classic line to sit above your own, Thoreau’s “I am grateful for what I am and have” is short and kind, and Emerson’s “devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new” suits a note to someone you have known a long time.
How do you wish someone a good Thanksgiving?
Keep it specific and short. Here are seven that fit inside a small card:
- Wishing you a table full of people who are glad you came. (Etheric Echoes)
- Thinking of you this Thanksgiving, and glad you are part of our year. (Etheric Echoes)
- May your oven behave and your table be crowded. (Etheric Echoes)
- Wishing you a quiet morning, a loud kitchen and a very full table. (Etheric Echoes)
- We wish we could squeeze one more chair in for you. (Etheric Echoes)
- Thank you for being the kind of person people save a seat for. (Etheric Echoes)
- From our table to yours, with thanks for another year of you. (Etheric Echoes)
For a card to someone far away, add one real detail: “We used your recipe again.” That does more than any quotation.
The most famous Thanksgiving quotes and who really wrote them
Many of the Thanksgiving gratitude lines passed around every November have no clear source, or belong to living writers. These are the ones we could trace to a real page in a real book.
Thoreau, in a letter, December 1856. “I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.” He wrote it to his friend H. G. O. Blake, and it appears in Familiar Letters of Henry David Thoreau.
Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation of Thanksgiving, October 3, 1863. “The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.” The proclamation set the last Thursday of November as a national day of thanks.
Louisa May Alcott, “An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving,” Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag, Volume 6 (1882). The best table lines in the story come from the children. Solomon says, “I always have room enough, and I’d like to have Thanksgiving every day.” Prue says, “It will be so nice to eat dinner together, warm and comfortable at home.” The cook, Mrs. Bassett, sums up the whole day: “Thanksgivin’ dinners can’t be drove, and it does take a sight of victuals to fill all these hungry stomicks.” Alcott’s spelling is kept as printed.
William Shakespeare. As You Like It (Act 2, scene 7) has “Blow, blow, thou winter wind, thou art not so unkind as man’s ingratitude,” a good line for the relative who forgets to say thanks. For the table itself, see “Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast” in the place card section.
Ralph Waldo Emerson on the dinner table. “The law of the table is Beauty” opens a passage in Letters and Social Aims (1876), “Social Aims,” about how to be a good guest. Emerson goes on to say that a good guest never talks shop. It still works for keeping work talk away from the pie.
Emerson on ordinary days. “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year” is from the essay “Works and Days” in Society and Solitude (1870).
Benjamin Franklin wrote the line about little advantages in The Autobiography, and John Milton wrote the grateful mind in Paradise Lost. Both are above, in the toast section.
Popular Thanksgiving quotes we left out and why
You will find these on almost every list. We checked each and did not use it.
- “Gratitude turns what we have into enough.” This is usually passed around as an old saying. It belongs to a living author, Melody Beattie, so it is not free to reuse.
- “Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude” credited to Henri-Frederic Amiel. A note on Wikiquote says the first two sentences come from William Taylor’s English Synonyms Discriminated, so the credit is in doubt.
- “Gratitude is the fairest blossom,” credited to Henry Ward Beecher. We could not find where he wrote it, so we left it off, even though his name turns up on many of these lists.
- “Gratitude is the memory of the heart.” Credited to many people, with no work cited for any of them.
- A long quote about saying thank you once in your life, credited to the medieval writer Meister Eckhart. We found no source for it in his work.
Funny Thanksgiving sayings for the family table
Funny Thanksgiving quotes work best when they sound like your own family. These are ours, and they are meant for a card at the kids’ table, a banner over the buffet, or the person who needs a laugh before the football game starts.
- Someone will say they are not hungry. Someone will be wrong. (Etheric Echoes)
- We do not count the second helping. We count the third. (Etheric Echoes)
- The Thanksgiving turkey is the star, but the real work is done by the potatoes. (Etheric Echoes)
- Dinner is at two. Dinner is at three. Dinner is when the turkey says so. (Etheric Echoes)
- The kids’ table has better stories and fewer opinions. (Etheric Echoes)
- If the gravy boat is empty, the day went well. (Etheric Echoes)
- Loosen a belt notch. Tighten a hug. (Etheric Echoes)
- Please remain seated while the pie is being discussed. (Etheric Echoes)
- Every family has one dish only one person likes, and that person guards it. (Etheric Echoes)
- Thanksgiving is the one day a year we all agree the kitchen is where everyone belongs. (Etheric Echoes)
- The turkey takes all day. The memories take about a minute, and they last for years. (Etheric Echoes)
- Be thankful for the folding chairs. It means there were more of you than the table could hold. (Etheric Echoes)
How to use Thanksgiving quotes at the table
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Place cards. Print a line on Avery printable tent cards (opens Amazon in a new tab)As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Full disclosure. or write it by hand under each name. Choose the line for the person: the Thoreau line for the friend who gardens, the Eliot line for the friend who talks best over a meal, a funny one for your brother. Pencil first, pen second.
A chalkboard by the door. A set of mini chalkboard signs with easel stands (opens Amazon in a new tab)As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Full disclosure. can label the pies and the dishes, and one can carry a single saying. Chalk wipes off, so you can change it for Friday.
A letter board. A felt letter board (opens Amazon in a new tab)As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Full disclosure. sits on a shelf or a mantel and reads like a small sign. Use the short lines from the table above and lay the letters out on the table first.
Tags on napkins or favors. Kraft gift tags with string (opens Amazon in a new tab)As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Full disclosure. can hold one line each. Tie one around a napkin, a jar of jam or a small bundle of cinnamon sticks to send home with a guest.
Setting up the rest of the table? These pages cover the part that is not words:
- Thanksgiving table ideas for a small space
- Thanksgiving table settings when you do not own china
- Thanksgiving table decor for a small dining room
- Simple Thanksgiving centerpiece ideas
- A Thanksgiving hosting checklist for a small gathering
- Thanksgiving hostess gifts
What is the true meaning of Thanksgiving?
At its plainest, Thanksgiving Day is a day set aside to sit down with the people you have and say you are glad of them. Thanksgiving reminds us to count our blessings out loud, and the table is where family and togetherness happen: the turkey, the sweet potatoes, a pumpkin pie going around twice. It became a national holiday in 1863, when Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation named the last Thursday of November. Congress later moved it to the fourth Thursday of November, which is why Thanksgiving falls on November 26 this year. The food, the folding chairs and the family stories are the usual way people mark it, and a quote on a card is a way to say it out loud.
If you have a few minutes, write one line of your own. A line in your own handwriting is the one people tuck in a drawer, and the one your family will repeat next year.
